We're, Not,  Coping
by Aimlessly Unknown
Summary: They go crazy, go colorblind, hallucinate, and lie.  Team Seven .


_Summary_: They go crazy, go colorblind, hallucinate, and lie. [Team Seven].

**/**

He was going crazy.

Not in the fun way – not in the way where he could laugh and laugh and drink and party and be a part of society that isn't left alone in the darkness with Kyuubi's dark, taut laugh echoing behind him because secretly that fuzz-ball likes watching him happy; but crazy in the way that the Kyuubi would laugh _at_. That a dark, dank cell in the alcove of his mind would echo with a deep bark-like laugh that bled into his mind until he could imagine it in his sleep and wake up _screaming_ from it.

He can't become the Hokage anymore – he's not strong enough.

Oh he has the talent. The strength to level mountains make seas tremble with fear from the mere sight of him. He can kill, he can maim, he can crush the air in the Earth and make it into the blood of his enemies because he is _Naruto_ and he has the strength of a thousand Hokage's and the blood of one thrumming in his veins. And yet he cannot kill.

He can't kill a _soul_ because when he sees people he sees _her_. He sees that bright-eyed woman-child with calloused skin and that sisterly grin that hurts a bit too much. He sees her with those doe-eyes that water whenever it hurts too much and he can't hurt that.

He can't dig a kunai into the soft, pale flesh (_rough, tan skin of a _killer) of a woman who looks like his lost-sister and stop those eyes (_sunken low and black_) from blinking because that's what someone did to her once upon a nightmare ago; he can't take those hands from the world because they might have held a brother once, he just can't kill her.

(_missing nin number twelve; status: escaped; reason: hesitation from ANBU party_).

He can't send people to die on those missions that took her.

He can't live with the memory of her.

He was going _insane_.

(_something is breaking, darling, can you tell it's your mind_?)

**/**

There's nothing left in Konoha.

Nothing left for him to want to hold in his arms until they are weak with the strain of life. Nothing to scoff at or hiss insults at because there is _nothing_ and there never will be again. He whispers to the walls of his house, to the ghosts around him, and they whisper back sometimes. And the voices sound remarkably familiar to his mind. The wind hisses sometimes, he thinks, it can't help it. There is nothing for it to breathe upon and make joyful once more when the day is too hot.

The trees are not green and the sky is not blue and the sunset is no longer pink to him. It all bleeds to red against the gray pallor of the background world. He cannot tell friend from foe anymore and there is no controlling the black seal on his flesh. His skin is starting to turn permanently ashen and his hair is purple-gray now but his eyes are still a shining, bright red. He is living a tragedy and he is the main character without the chance of redemption anymore. He was empty. Blank. A monster with a conscious stained red with the blood of comrades and enemies alike – but what does it matter?

Konoha was _nothing_.

Not without her. His light, his love, his broken, haunting, but oh so loving _sunshine_ – forever gone now, was forever without her.

(_can you hear their screams, sweetheart, they're screaming for _you.)

**/**

The mask is off now.

Women are squealing and men are envious. He is handsome. He is perfect. He is alone. No one comes to his house to call him out on _not protecting_ the only thing that _mattered_ to his team. No one takes him out to get drunk out of his mind because _what good does that do, sensei_? His team meets once a week and do not breathe a word to one another. Not when the person that started this tradition is gone. So they sit and they stare and when an hour is up they leave to their homes (_to their homemade tombs_). One does not hear about Team Seven. The _New_ _Sannin_ is no longer an option.

And he blames himself.

He cannot drink. He cannot mourn because _tears don't resurrect people, sensei_. He cannot read because there she is the character in his novels, in the big eyes and soft hair, and she doesn't deserve to be written in such a filthy manner. He buys them out of habit and leaves them to collect dust.

So he takes his mask off because the one person who should have seen his face is no longer here.

(_there's blood on your hands, love, and it feels like hers, doesn't it_?)

**/**

She delivers a speech at the funeral.

It was long and carefully delivered and she wasn't drunk at all. It is the speech for the ages with painted words about dedication and love and kindness and determination to be the best. It was a speech that wrought tears and hiccups and hit the heart in all the right places to make anyone feel like they knew the woman.

But then she raises eyes to the men and women who actually knew the girl. To the betrayed eyes of the people who want to scream _WHY ARE YOU LYING_? _TELL THEM ABOUT OUR GIRL, NOT THIS PRETTY LIE,_ and she chokes back a sob, before stepping down. They condemn her for lying but the truth hurts too much. If she told about the temper and the big eyes and the warm hands and soothing chakra she would have broken. She can't risk it. So she leaves them to tell about the nuances and whisper soft apologies to an unbearably hot day and dares anyone to make a complaint.

She drowns herself in sake for a week before picking up and carrying on. Because she has a country to run and people to send to die; missions come and come and come until there's rumors of an uprising in the world of shinobi and a lack of ninjas to quell the countries needs. She squashes them by dispatching nearly all her ninja in a single go except the rookies she has known all her life.

Suddenly there is peace, because no one would dare attack when the Rookie Nine have lost one of their own and tensions and power run high.

She knows this because she is a good Hokage; because she can shut off her emotions and push through; like a good little kuniouchi.

She delivered a speech at the funeral, and ignored the one running on in her soul about her beautiful, sweet, temperamental, powerful, soft, calloused, happy apprentice.

(_didn't you know, dearest, that lying is a sin_?)

**/**

Somewhere in the Otherworld Sakura's soul wails.

_cherry blossoms fall  
drifting away in the wind  
none hear their outcry._

**/**

Aimlessly Unknown


End file.
